DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0129
MAHAVALLIPUR. 107
impressions of the place in more or less detail. Among these, none
was more impressed with their importance than Bishop Heber,
who described them with his usual taste and discrimination; and
Mrs. Maria Graham, in her journal and letters, devotes a consider-
able space to them, and perhaps done as much as any one to render
them popular with general readers.1 Several views of them were
published by Daniel in the beginning of this century. These, how-
ever, have lately been superseded by photographs, of which several
sets have lately been made and published. The most complete is by
Dr. A. Hunter, late Director of the Government School of Art at
Madras. They were also photographed by Captain Lyon for the
Madras Government. But the best that have yet been done are
by Mr. Nicholas, of Madras, which are superior to any that have
hitherto reached this country.
Notwithstanding all that has been said and written about them,
there is no group of rock-cut temples in India regarding whose age
or use it has hitherto been so difficult to predicate anything that is
either certain or satisfactory. They are, in fact, like the Undavilli
cave just described, quite exceptional, and form no part of any
series in which their relative position could be ascertained. They
certainly had no precursors in this part of the country, and they
contain no principle of development in themselves by which their
progress might be compared with that of any other series; one of
the most singular phenomena regarding them being, that though
more various in form than any other group, they are all of the same
age, or at least so nearly so that it is impossible to get any sequence
out of them. The people, whoever they were, who carved them
seem suddenly to have settled on a spot where no temples existed
before, and to have set to work at once and at the same time to
fashion the detached boulders they found on the shore into nine or
ten raths or miniature temples. They undertook simultaneously
to pierce the sides of the hill with thirteen or fourteen caves; to
sculpture the great bas-relief known as the penance of Arjuna;
and to carve elephants, lions, bulls, and other monolithic emblems
1 At the end of Capt. Carr's book two pages (pp. 230, 231) are devoted to the
bibliography of the subject, which is the most original and among the most useful
in Ms publication.
impressions of the place in more or less detail. Among these, none
was more impressed with their importance than Bishop Heber,
who described them with his usual taste and discrimination; and
Mrs. Maria Graham, in her journal and letters, devotes a consider-
able space to them, and perhaps done as much as any one to render
them popular with general readers.1 Several views of them were
published by Daniel in the beginning of this century. These, how-
ever, have lately been superseded by photographs, of which several
sets have lately been made and published. The most complete is by
Dr. A. Hunter, late Director of the Government School of Art at
Madras. They were also photographed by Captain Lyon for the
Madras Government. But the best that have yet been done are
by Mr. Nicholas, of Madras, which are superior to any that have
hitherto reached this country.
Notwithstanding all that has been said and written about them,
there is no group of rock-cut temples in India regarding whose age
or use it has hitherto been so difficult to predicate anything that is
either certain or satisfactory. They are, in fact, like the Undavilli
cave just described, quite exceptional, and form no part of any
series in which their relative position could be ascertained. They
certainly had no precursors in this part of the country, and they
contain no principle of development in themselves by which their
progress might be compared with that of any other series; one of
the most singular phenomena regarding them being, that though
more various in form than any other group, they are all of the same
age, or at least so nearly so that it is impossible to get any sequence
out of them. The people, whoever they were, who carved them
seem suddenly to have settled on a spot where no temples existed
before, and to have set to work at once and at the same time to
fashion the detached boulders they found on the shore into nine or
ten raths or miniature temples. They undertook simultaneously
to pierce the sides of the hill with thirteen or fourteen caves; to
sculpture the great bas-relief known as the penance of Arjuna;
and to carve elephants, lions, bulls, and other monolithic emblems
1 At the end of Capt. Carr's book two pages (pp. 230, 231) are devoted to the
bibliography of the subject, which is the most original and among the most useful
in Ms publication.